I've been reading a lot of entrepreneur blogs. Writing a bunch of content is a mistake a lot of people make. You really only new a small set of good content that you market the shit out of. People always forget the sales and marketing part of a business.

How to write not-terribly very quickly and with little inspiration and rest.

How to spot what will draw traffic and what won't--and that I will routinely fail to predict this. For example, I saw Prancercise long before it went viral and ignored it because I thought it was a dead-end.

How to distance myself from the news media. I'm not a journalist and I'm very careful not to call myself that.

Like Biggs, how I sometimes help people. Artists in particular have sent me emails and tweets thanking me for bringing their work to public attention--often directly attributing my quick post to income in their pockets. That's a good feeling.

You learn that the media is broken and you are mostly the cause. I’m sorry. I worked for Gizmodo where we started a new, flippant version of the standard tech writing that once graced the pages of actual paper magazines. We wrote so much that we got cocky and conceited and annoying and we hated our subjects for their earnest desire for coverage. We invented the listicle. We invented the gift guide. We mostly invented the sponsored post. We brought about the move from media to social media and we reacted by creating awful headlines and writing terrible prose. I tried to stay above the fray but it was really hard. Now everything is broken and sucks. I’m honestly really sorry. When I left Laptop Magazine to go to Gawker I didn’t think we’d end up with all these bullshit click-bait headlines like “This Woman Pulled Her Guts Out Through Her Belly Button. What Happens Next Will Give You Chills.” Seriously. Sorry.This is what happens when you monetize over all else.

I didn’t think we’d end up with all these bullshit click-bait headlines like “This Woman Pulled Her Guts Out Through Her Belly Button. What Happens Next Will Give You Chills.” Seriously. Sorry. This is what happens when you monetize over all else.

Meh. I've written more than 11,000 posts and many millions of words for my blog (golfblogger.com) since 2004. Since I've done that as a hobby in the evenings after work, I really don't see 11K posts as that big a deal.

Meh. I've written more than 11,000 posts and many millions of words for my blog (golfblogger.com) since 2004. Since I've done that as a hobby in the evenings after work, I really don't see 11K posts as that big a deal.

Verrrrry disappointed. After 12 years your blog still uses simple factual titles that actually tell me what's in a post rather than emotional "curiosity gap" titles? No Stack Social store? No outrageous photos? What kind of monster are you???

I'm the kind of horrible person that assumes my readers have some intelligence.

But seriously, I was trained as a news writer at a time when we still wrote on Selectrics and did paste-ups on blue boards. I just haven't mastered (nor do I care to) the skill of deceptive click bait.